Posts Tagged ‘Qatar’
Friday, June 16th, 2017
Briefer than normal due to a packed schedule today:
Coalition forces continue to advance in the Islamic State capital of Raqqa.
Speaking of Raqqa, Russia is saying one of its airstrikes there may have killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Great news if true, but right now the report should be taken with several grains of salt.
Illinois bonds headed toward junk status.
“Mueller Hires Clinton Foundation Lawyer for Russia Probe.” Transparent this is not… (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) reported that in the last six years around 220,000 criminal aliens have been booked in Texas jails. DHS confirmed to DPS that at least 148,000 or 66% of those criminal aliens had entered the U.S. illegally.”
“Qatar’s financial system is running out of dollars.”
ObamaCare is failing. “Not one Republican voted for Obamacare. A Democratic Congress passed and a Democratic president signed the legislation over the loud objections of the GOP. Conservative activists and legal groups fought tooth and nail to prevent its roll-out, and when that failed, they repeatedly warned it was doomed to failure.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
And some ObamaCare premiums have increased by more than 100% in the last four years.
More of those peaceful Democrats: “FBI Investigates Package With ‘White Powdery Substance’ Sent to GOP Candidate in GA-6.”
This piece on the current state of the Democratic Party comes with caveats, namely: a.) Rolling Stone, b.) Obviously hostile to Republicans, Trump, etc., and c.) Lots of “Ra-ra isn’t Tom Perez great” flacking. But look beyond that and there’s a cold-eyed assessment of just how badly off Obama left the Democratic Party:
The Democratic Party is in the worst shape of its modern history. The presidency of Barack Obama papered over the fact that the party was being hollowed out from below. Over Obama’s two terms, Democrats ceded 13 governorships to the GOP and stumbled from controlling six in 10 state legislatures to now barely one in three. Across federal and state government, Democrats have lost close to 1,000 seats. There are only six states where Democrats control both the legislature and the governor’s mansion.
More troubling: Even amid the great upwelling of anti-Trump resistance, Democratic favorability ratings have continued to tumble since Election Day – to just 40 percent in a May Gallup poll. “Our negatives are almost as high as Trump’s, as far as party goes,” says Rep. Tim Ryan, a rugged Ohio Democrat serving Youngstown. Ryan led an unsuccessful 63-vote insurgency against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in November because, he says, “We weren’t winning.”
There is no official accounting for this erosion of power and popularity. Unlike the GOP in the aftermath of Mitt Romney’s 2012 defeat, Democrats have not published post-mortems. But get party insiders talking – with anonymity exchanged for candor – and there’s little debate about how the party went sideways.
Responsibility rests foremost at the feet of former President Barack Obama. As a candidate, Obama sidestepped the party’s next-in-line culture, riding into the White House on the strength of a then-revolutionary digital-and-grassroots machinery of his own creation. “Obama was almost like the anti-Democrat,” a former DNC chair tells Rolling Stone. “The president didn’t care about the Democratic Party.”
Once in office, Obama had the weight of the world to bear. He staved off financial collapse and secured health insurance for an estimated 20 million Americans, leveraging the party’s infrastructure for these fights. “When you’re at the head of the DNC and you have the White House,” says Sen. Tim Kaine, who chaired the party from 2009 to 2011, “a lot of the job is about promoting the president’s agenda.” But Obama and his team neglected a far less heroic duty: the care and feeding of the national party, which Democrats had rebuilt during the Bush years with a “50-state strategy” that had empowered Obama with dominant Democratic majorities in Congress.
The GOP took full advantage of the president’s disregard for party politics. The Tea Party vaulted Republicans to control of the U.S. House and statehouses across the country in 2010 – putting the party in the driver’s seat for the once-a-decade redrawing of legislative boundaries known as redistricting. The White House mounted no resistance. “The Obama team, David Axelrod, had no organized structural redistricting [game plan],” says a longtime Democratic strategist. “The Republicans just ran up the fucking score everywhere. They got two or three extra congressional seats in state after state after state, creating lasting struggles to get back to a majority.” Case in point: Democratic House candidates netted 1.3 million more votes than Republicans in 2012, but secured 33 fewer seats.
The 50-state strategy devolved under Obama into a presidential-battleground strategy, leaving state parties starved for cash and leadership. “Obama didn’t put resources into local parties unless it was for his re-election effort,” says the former party chair. Making matters worse: Obama tapped ambitious Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz – a favorite of White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett – to run the DNC in 2011. “That congresswoman had no idea what she was doing,” adds the former chair.
Wasserman Schultz went rogue. In a rift with the White House that spilled into a story on Politico, she was criticized for using the DNC as a vehicle for self-promotion, hoping the office would serve as a springboard into House leadership. The White House made overtures to oust Wasserman Schultz, but she dug in, promising an ugly fight that could tar the president as both anti-woman and anti-Semitic. (Wasserman Schultz, who was forced to resign in the aftermath of the Russian hack of the DNC, declined to participate in this story.)
Obama dodged that fight, and instead fostered Organizing for Action, the grassroots group born of his campaigns. “They had a mirror organization that did just their politics, and it weakened the DNC,” says a source in House leadership. “It directed money elsewhere and was not in the interest of the long-term stability [of the party]. It was a selfish strategy.”
The hobbled DNC’s chief remaining value was as a fundraising vehicle. For Obama, it “was like his ATM – and Clinton was the same,” says the former chair. Clinton pioneered a strategy that allowed her largest donors to give $10,000 to each of 32 state parties participating in her Victory Fund. But that money didn’t stay in the states. Instead, nearly every penny was hoovered up to the DNC for the benefit of Clinton’s election.
Clinton today says she found the DNC to be a liability. In an onstage interview at a Recode tech conference in May, Clinton recalled, “I get the nomination. . . . I inherit nothing from the Democratic Party. It was bankrupt. . . . I had to inject money into it – the DNC – to keep it going.” Clinton then raised eyebrows by indicting the DNC’s data, which the party had inherited from the Obama re-election campaign. “Its data was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong,” Clinton said. (The DNC’s former data chief hit back, tweeting that Clinton’s broadside was “fucking bullshit,” but declined to be interviewed.)
Under Obama, the party infrastructure was honed to elect a president. And being a presidential party is a powerful thing – until you lose the White House. The Clinton campaign lost significantly on its own merits, though the party is loath to admit it. The same candidate who was caught flat-footed by the rise of Obama in 2008 found herself stunned by the grassroots surge behind Sen. Bernie Sanders. “And she was really surprised by how strong Trump was – and part of it was she just sucked,” says the Democratic strategist, who criticizes Clinton despite being entrenched in her center-left, pro-trade wing of the party. “At a really fundamental level we gotta get people to acknowledge what a fucking piece of shit her campaign was.”
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
CNN’s Jim Acosta flat out lies about President Trump’s visit to wounded Representative Steve Scalise’s hospital room. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
More lying from CNN:
New York Times editorial about Rep. Scalise’s shooting is not just a lie, it’s actually libelous.
New bill aims to eliminate “structuring” civil asset forfeiture abuse. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
A profile of radical Islamist and left-wing media darling Linda Sarsour. “Her rise, and the celebration of her by progressives as one of their own, demonstrates how clearly and phenomenally Jews and Jewish concerns are being written out of the progressive movement.”
“DOJ Moves To Seize DiCaprio’s Picasso, Rights To ‘Dumb and Dumber To’ As Part Of 1MDB Case.” Or “Hollywood accounting meets a Malaysian dictator, and hilarity ensues!”
MLA votes against Israel boycott.
How Indians scam their way to Australian citizenship, and how a crackdown on the practice may crash Sydney and Melbourne property values. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
President Trump orders the federal government to stop working on the Y2K bug.
“Is this some kind of bust?” (Hat tip: Dwight, who also came up with the Police Squad! reference.)
“My Trip to a Marijuana Dispensary, the Happiest Place in Boulder.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
All the people Billy Martin brawled with.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, al-Baghdadi, Austin, Australia, Border Controls, civil asset forfeiture, Clinton Foundation, CNN, Crime, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democratic Party, Democrats, DNC, Donald Trump, EmailGate, Hillary Clinton, Illinois, India, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Israel, Jeannie Rhee, Jihad, Karen Handel, Leonardo DiCaprio, Linda Sarsour, LinkSwarm, Malaysia, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Qatar, Raqqa, Rolling Stone, Steve Scalise, Syria, Texas, Texas DPS, Tom Perez
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Jihad, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Regulation, Texas | 1 Comment »
Monday, June 12th, 2017
Enjoy a late, out-of-band LinkSwarm to start your week:
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is serious about border control:
Sessions said 25 judges have already been deployed to detention centers on the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Politico. Another 50 judges will be “on the bench” later this year. A separate 75 judges will be added in fiscal 2018 at a cost of $80 million.
The need is obvious. About half of all federal arrests in 2014 were for immigration crimes, and 93 percent of that figure took place at or near the border, the Bureau of Justice Statistics recently reported.
Leaked diplomatic cables show concern by other U.S. allies in the region that Qatar was backing terrorist groups.
More background on the Qatar vs. every other Sunni gulf state feud.
“President Trump continues to make sterling judicial nominations.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Trump as our Claudius.
Pundits keep telling President Trump he has to give up tweeting. Why would he, when his tweets make the media dance to his tune? (Hat tip: Scott Adams.)
“Obama Admin Did Not Publicly Disclose Iran Cyber-Attack During ‘Side-Deal’ Nuclear Negotiations.” Because why protect America’s cybersecurity when you can give billions to a jihad-supporting regime to sign a treaty they’ll refuse to follow?
“12 Democrat staffers arrested, charged with voter fraud.”
Congress should investigate if Attorney General Lynch pressured Comey to cover for Hillary Clinton, says notorious right-wing shill…Dianne Feinstein? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Now that Democrats are getting getting hefty support from moneyed elites, they’re not so keen on wealth redistribution.
“The Strange Death of Scottish Nationalism.” The Tories did badly in the snap election, but the Scottish National Party did much, much worse.
How Theresa May screwed up. And why on earth was she using Jim Messina as a political consultant? Because he did such a smashing job on the “Remain” campaign?
“EU, UN siphon off 100 million Euro annually to groups running anti-Israel campaign.”
“UK government paid London jihad mass murderer’s brother to fight ‘extremism.'”
Jim Goad covers the lunacy at Evergreen College. Tidbit: “The school bears the dubious distinction of being ‘one of the least selective universities in the nation with an admittance rate of 98%.'” *Hat tip: Director Blue.)
So much news dropped last week that I didn’t get around to posting on the arrest of NSA contractor Reality Winner for leaking classified information. And does the name “Reality Winner” mean we’re living in a Philip K. Dick novel? Or a Thomas Pynchon novel?
But we should lit Winner’s weird name distract us from the fact she’s a complete and utter moron, “not only printing the document from her NSA computer but emailing the Intercept using her personal Gmail account from the same computer.” (More on printing microdot technology.
In any case, the MSM is omitting Winner’s long, documented history of far-left political activism.
“The Democrats don’t have a ‘white working-class problem.’ They have a ‘working-class problem.” Caveat: Lots of leftist blather. But it’s refreshing to see liberals admit just how badly the Obama economy sucked. (Hat tip: Mickey Kaus.)
Tweet:
“Italy’s populist Five Star Movement humiliated in municipal elections.” That’s Beppe Grillo’s left-wing populist Euroskeptic Party. Between this and France’s election, was Brexit the high-water mark of Euroskepticism? Maybe, until the next economic crisis.
Speaking of which, the slow-motion Spanish banking panic continues apace, and Spanish regulators have imposed a ban on short-selling.
Adam West, RIP.
Flying Goth.
Attempted cereal killing.
Joe’s Crab Shack files for bankruptcy.
“Man Fashions Fabulously Tiny Hats for Toad Who Visits His Porch Every Day.”
Tags:Beppe Grillo, Border Controls, Brexit, Conservatives, Crime, data security, Democrats, Dianne Feinstein, Donald Trump, Elections, EU, Evergreen State College, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Iran, Italy, James Comey, Jihad, Jim Messina, Labour, LinkSwarm, London, Loretta Lynch, Maggie Haberman, Media Watch, New York Times, NSA, Qatar, Reality Winner, Scottish National Party, Spain, Stanley Greenberg, Theresa May, Twitter, Voter Fraud, War on Terror
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 6th, 2017
When news came down that Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE and Egypt were cutting diplomatic ties with Qatar, I speculated that this might be a direct result of President Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East. Noting longstanding belief that Qatar was the primary funding source for the Islamic State, I suggested “maybe a businessman like Trump thinks the easiest way to cramp the Islamic State’s style is to cut off their sugar daddy.”
These two tweets from President Trump indicate I may be right:
Caveat the first: Trump. Caveat the second: Trump’s Twitter feed, which is, as we all know, a nonstop notion buffet.
Still, whether President Trump is behind the move or not, he’s already had more success cutting off terrorist funding than the feckless Obama Administration.
Tags:Bahrain, Donald Trump, Egypt, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jihad, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, terrorism, Twitter, UAE
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »
Sunday, June 4th, 2017
This seems more than a regular diplomatic row:
Saudi Arabia broke diplomatic relations and all land sea and air contacts with fellow Gulf Arab state Qatar on Monday, saying the move was necessary to protect the kingdom from what it described as terrorism and extremism.
The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt also cut ties with Qatar on Monday.
Crude and natural gas prices jumped after the news with global benchmark Brent up 1.42 percent to $50.66 a barrel and U.S. West Texas Intermediate up 1.45 percent to $48.35 a barrel. U.S. natural gas prices quoted at the U.S. Henry Hub jumped 1.37 percent to $3.040 per million British thermal units.
Saudi Arabia’s official state news agency, citing an official source, said the kingdom had decided to sever diplomatic and consular relations with Qatar “proceeding from the exercise of its sovereign right guaranteed by international law and the protection of national security from the dangers of terrorism and extremism”.
Saudi Arabia cut all land air and sea contacts with Qatar “and urges all brotherly countries and companies to do the same.”
It’s long been an open secret that wealthy Qataris were the primary financial backers of the Islamic State. By contrast, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE and Egypt are all U.S. military allies.
There’s been talk that Qatar wants to take a more conciliatory stance toward Iran, a move that has not been well-received by it’s fellow Sunni gulf states. It’s especially odd since Qatari soldiers have died defending the Saudi border as part of the Saudi fight with Iran’s Houthi proxies in Yemen.
Could the harder line against Qatar be a side effect of President Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East? Maybe. Trump has set about fixings Obama’s foreign policy mistakes, and the Islamic State and the asinine Iran Deal are two of the biggest. And maybe a businessman like Trump thinks the easiest way to cramp the Islamic State’s style is to cut off their sugar daddy.
It’s worth a try…
Tags:Bahrain, Donald Trump, Egypt, Foreign Policy, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jihad, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Military | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 15th, 2017
Beware the Ides of March! Also beware the Clinton Family (and their fixer functionaries John and Tony Podesta), who keep refusing to fade from public sight:
Less than half of the projects undertaken by the Clinton Global Initiative have been completed.
So what do you do when you have a potentially useful and informative piece, but don’t trust the source? Report it with a caveat, namely that this comes from Infowars: “Russian Bank Docs Show How Putin Laundered Money to Hillary & Podesta“:
Congress may want to examine concrete evidence showing Russian President Vladimir Putin paying Hillary Clinton and John Podesta for a long time before the mainstream media goes even more overboard trying to fabricate a tie between Putin and President Donald Trump.
The money trail hunt begins with a document Infowars has obtained from the Russian Central Bank “Registry of Significant Control,” known generally as the “RSC Registry.”
This document traces the ownership of Metcombank, a relatively small Russian-domiciled bank located in the Russian Ural Mountains, to ownership by Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian billionaire with close ties to Putin.
As we shall see this document provides evidence of the circuitous path the Russian government has been using since Hillary Clinton was secretary of state to make large financial payments to John Podesta and to the Clinton Foundation.
As the RSC Registry makes clear, Vekselberg has been paying Clinton and Podesta through a complicated money laundering scheme involving Metcombank in Russia, with payments tracing back to the Renova Group, a Russian-based energy and investment international conglomerate also owned by Vekselberg.
Evidently some of the money flowing to Podesta is coming via the previously mentioned Joule Unlimited:
In the summer of 2011, while he was advising then-Secretary Clinton on State Department policy, John Podesta joined the board of three Joule entities: Joule Unlimited, a small Massachusetts-based energy company; its holding company, Joule Global Holdings, N.V., which was based in the Netherlands; and Joule Global Stichting, which appears to be the ultimate controlling entity.
Podesta, it turns out, has been paid an undisclosed amount, starting in 2011, for serving on the executive board of Joule Unlimited that he neglected to report to regulatory authorities in the U.S., as well consulting fees from the Wyss Foundation, a group controlled by Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, an investor in Joule Energy.
In an Aug. 2016 report entitled “From Russia with Money,” the Government Accountability Institute noted that Podesta consulted for a foundation run by one of the investors in Joule Energy, Hansjörg Wyss, who in turn was a major Clinton Foundation donor.
Podesta was evidently paid $87,000 by the Wyss Foundation in 2013, according to federal tax records.
The GAI report also documented the Wyss Charitable Foundation has given between $1 million to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Some of the information here is new (or at least new to me), while other bits accord with what we already know about Podesta ties to Putin. I would still like to see external verification from a more reliable source for the new information.
“In pushing its Manchurian-candidate-Trump narrative, the media fail to mention the much deeper ties of Democratic lobbyists to Russia. Don’t worry, the media seems to say: Even though they are representing Russia, the lobbyists are good upstanding citizens, not like the Trump people. They can be trusted with such delicate matters.”
The media’s focus on Trump’s Russian connections ignores the much more extensive and lucrative business relationships of top Democrats with Kremlin-associated oligarchs and companies. Thanks to the Panama Papers, we know that the Podesta Group (founded by John Podesta’s brother, Tony) lobbied for Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank. “Sberbank is the Kremlin, they don’t do anything major without Putin’s go-ahead, and they don’t tell him ‘no’ either,” explained a retired senior U.S. intelligence official. According to a Reuters report, Tony Podesta was “among the high-profile lobbyists registered to represent organizations backing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.” Among these was the European Center, which paid Podesta $900,000 for his lobbying.
That’s not all: The busy Podesta Group also represented Uranium One, a uranium company acquired by the Russian government which received approval from Hillary Clinton’s State Department to mine for uranium in the U.S. and gave Russia twenty percent control of US uranium. The New York Times reported Uranium One’s chairman, Frank Guistra, made significant donations to the Clinton Foundation, and Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for one speech from a Russian investment bank that has “links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.” Notably, Frank Giustra, the Clinton Foundation’s largest and most controversial donor, does not appear anywhere in Clinton’s “non-private” emails. It is possible that the emails of such key donors were automatically scrubbed to protect the Clinton Foundation.
Let’s not leave out fugitive Ukrainian oligarch, Dymtro Firtash. He is represented by Democratic heavyweight lawyer, Lanny Davis, who accused Trump of “inviting Putin to commit espionage” (Trump’s quip: If Putin has Hillary’s emails, release them) but denies all wrongdoing by Hillary.
Indeed, Sberbank confirmed it hired Tony Podesta, elder brother of John Podesta, to get various Obama-era sanctions lifted.
There’s just one tiny little problem: “Democratic super lobbyist Tony Podesta failed to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) when he agreed to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank.”
Lot’s of people in Hillary Clinton’s campaign met with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Five Clinton-Russia Bombshells Progressives Yawned Over.” Including much already covered here, although I might have missed this one: “Ian Telfer, the head of the Russian government’s uranium company, Uranium One, made four foreign donations totaling $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation, as the New York Times reported.”
“The Clinton Foundation has confirmed it accepted a $1 million gift from Qatar while Hillary Clinton was U.S. secretary of state without informing the State Department, even though she had promised to let the agency review new or significantly increased support from foreign governments.”
“FBI Quietly Releases Batch #7 of Clinton Investigation Notes and Interviews.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Illegal fundraiser for the Clintons made secret tape because he feared being ASSASSINATED over what he knew – and used it to reveal Democrats’ bid to silence him.” Caveat the first: This is on Johnny Chung, Bill Clinton fundraiser back in 1996, who shows up in Year of the Rat, so it’s not exactly breaking news. Caveat the second: Daily Mail. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
But as long as we’re there, here’s a brief overview of the Clinton’s China connections. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
It’s time to investigate the Clinton Foundation. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Why won’t the Trump State Department look for Hillary’s emails? (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“State Department Inspector General officials edited out passages of a high-profile report in 2013 that could have embarrassed Hillary Clinton just days before she quit President Obama’s Cabinet.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Judicial Watch sues for information on Bill Clinton’s plane meeting with Loretta Lynch. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Not a surprise: Former Hillary Clinton Staffers Are Driving the Anti-Trump Resistance Movement:
Three of the five top strategists behind the March are key Clinton staffers: De’Ara Balenger, Meredith Shepard and Sarah Sophia Flicker. And three lower-level Women’s March staffers (Mariam Ehrari, Hannah Rosenzweig and Caitlyn Ryan) were essential members of Clinton’s extended campaign staff.
Balenger was Huma Abedin’s right-hand woman, reporting directly to Clinton’s top deputy and closest friend. Before joining Clinton’s campaign, she worked directly with disgraced State Department aide Cheryl Mills, who was at the center of Clinton’s private email server controversy, and was accused of wielding the power of the State Department to benefit the Clinton Foundation’s top donors.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
The media keeps pimping Chelsea Clinton.
Although by “the media,” more often than not it’s The Hill doing the pimping:
She is not a thing. Stop trying to make her a thing. She is not going to be the Savior of the Democratic Party, because no one wants to vote for a Clinton anymore. Everyone is tired of the Clintons. You can’t find any buzz about any of them outside of Peter Daou’s timeline, and that has devolved into pretty much just openly weeping at this point.
It’s incredibly difficult to take a news site that constantly posts Chelsea Clinton’s every thought as news serious. The Hill is little more than a joke right now pushing a punchline no one finds funny.
Tags:Bill Clinton, Caitlyn Ryan, Chelsea Clinton, Cheryl Mills, China, Clinton Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative, Crime, De’Ara Balenger, Democrats, Dymtro Firtash, EmailGate, Foreign Agent Registration Act, Foreign Policy, Frank Giustra, Hannah Rosenzweig, Hansjörg Wyss, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Ian Telfer, Infowars, John Podesta, Johnny Chung, Joule Unlimited, Judicial Watch, Lanny Davis, Loretta Lynch, Mariam Ehrari, Meredith Shepard, Metcombank, Qatar, Renova Group, Russia, Sarah Sophia Flicker, Sberbank, Sergey Kislyak, State Department, Tony Podesta, uranium, Viktor Vekselberg, Vladimir Putin, Wyss Charitable Foundation
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy | 2 Comments »
Sunday, January 15th, 2017
Remember the Clinton Global Initiative, the arm of the Clinton Foundation that Clinton supporters claimed helps solve “the world’s most pressing challenges,” and which detractors noted was yet another handy tool to line the pockets of the Clintons and their permanent traveling army of political toadies?
Well, evidently all the world’s most pressing challenges have been solved, as the Clinton Foundation is shutting down the Clinton Global Initiative:
In a “mass layoff” event reported late last week by the Department of Labor, the Clinton Foundation announced it would lay off some 22 employees at the Clinton Global Initiative, which attained notoriety during the John Podesta leaks, when the various details of the fallout between between CGI head Doug Band and Chelsea Clinton were revealed; it also emerged that long-time Bill Clinton friend Band was soliciting donations for Clinton through his PR firm, Teneo in an sordid example of “pay for play” which most of the mainstream media refused to cover, especially after Band emailed Podesta “If this story gets out, we are screwed.”
Filed as mandated by the Department of Labor’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN notice, on January 12, the Clinton Foundation’s Veronika Shiroka advised the DOL that as part of a “Plant Layoff” it would layoff 22 workers on April 15, with reason for the dislocation stated as “Discontinuation of the Clinton Global Initiative.” The layoffs are part of the Clinton plan put in motion ahead of the presidential election, to offset a storm of criticism regarding pay-to-play allegations during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
For those unable to disentangle CGI from the other money-laundering arms of the Clinton empire, here’s a look back at a few of their greatest hits:
CGI was a conduit of donation money from associates of exiled Turkish Islamist Fethullah Gulen.
CGI provided $2 million in funding for a private energy company run by personal friends of the Clintons…including Bill Clinton’s alleged mistress, wealthy blonde divorcee Julie Tauber McMahon.
One of CGI’s “big things” was putting on an annual conference where donors could rub shoulders with various charitable foundation heads, as well as the likes of Bill Clinton, Ben Affleck, Bono, Jon Bon Jovi, Tina Brown and David Bowie’s supermodel widow Iman.
Some of the other names on the 2016 conference list:
Anyway, there was already talk that the Clintons were going to shut down CGI when they expected Hillary to win the presidency. With Clinton Foundation donations taking a nosedive following Hillary’s loss, CGI was just another financial, political and legal liability for them. As one Zero Hedge commenter put it, “I’m sure the shredders are running 24×7 tonight.”
Tags:2016 Presidential Race, Aleksandar Vucic, Becky Quick, Ben Affleck, Ben Osborne, Bill Clinton, Bono, Casey Wasserman, Cecile Richards, Clinton Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative, Columbia, Crime, David Miliband, Democrats, Fethullah Gulen, Hernando de Soto, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Iman, Italy, Jason Collins, John Podesta, Jon Bon Jovi, Juan Manuel Santos, Julie Tauber McMahon, Matteo Renzi, Planned Parenthood, Qatar, Serbia, soccer, SolarCity, Tina Brown
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections | 1 Comment »
Monday, November 7th, 2016
The election is tomorrow, so let’s just combine the Clinton Corruption update with the election news update:
FBI punts again.
Qatar gave the Clinton Foundation $1 million for Bill Clinton’s birthday while Hillary was head of the State Department, in violation of Department policy and Clinton’s own “ethics agreement,” and without Hillary informing the State Department. “While Qatar was obvious engaged in pay to play, what makes this instance even worse, is that Hillary and Bill were confident enough they could simply get away with it by never telling the State Department of the new influence money.”
Impending calamity for the Clintons:
When the Clintons left the White House in 2001, pilfering over $190,000 worth of china, flatware, rugs, and furniture as they cleared out, they claimed they were flat broke. Their net worth today is now in excess of $150 million, accumulated not by traditional means of work and investment, but rather by pay-for-play influence peddling through speeches and Clinton Foundation fundraising — with the tacit understanding that the Clintons would be in a position to return favors to donors after Hillary won the 2016 presidential election.
The Clintons symbolize the institutionalization of corruption in Washington, which now permeates almost all the government agencies. Even the so-called independent Federal Reserve has been corrupted by politicians whose profligate deficit spending puts pressure on the Fed to maintain a zero-interest policy that artificially masks the real cost and risk of a growing unsustainable level of debt.
For the better part of eight years of the Obama administration, polls have consistently shown that nearly 70% of Americans believe that the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Separately, a recent MSNBC poll shows “liar” is the most common word that comes to mind when voters think of Hillary Clinton. Another recent NBC poll shows that only 11% think of Hillary as honest and trustworthy. Even if one doubts the accuracy of these polls, how is it possible for a majority to think the country can get on a better track by electing as the next U.S. President a liar who embodies the corrupt status quo?
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Normal people don’t see Islamic State military oilfield gains as an “opportunity”. But Clinton cronies aren’t normal people.
Chelsea Clinton used the Clinton Foundation as her own personal piggy bank to pay for her wedding. “If true people (then) worth well into 8 figures used 501c3 $ to pay for a wedding.”
The mystery of the Clinton Foundation’s missing $20 million in Haiti relief funds. Money that came from Frank Giustra and Carlos Slim. Also involved: Jean Marc Villain, who oversaw the fund while going through his own bankruptcy, and who “violated state laws in 2001 when he did not file donation reports for the Haitian-American Political Caucus.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Hey Hillary? Think you could stop mentioning classified war information in emails from your illegal private server? KThxBye – John Podesta”
Clinton News Network gonna Clinton News Network.
Scott Adams shows you how to unhypnotize a Clinton supporter.
“Market Indicator Gives Trump An 86% Chance Of Winning The Election.”
Chris Wallace: “I think the media could not do a worse job than this year….It’s like watching a badly refereed basketball game where we’re seeing make-up calls and we’re seeing particularly print going – and I’m not a Trump defender at all – but going after Trump in ways that I think violate every canon of ethics for news reporting.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Bill Clinton tells donors borders are going to be porous “for a very long time.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Clinton advisor Jennifer Palmieri admits that some Clinton Foundation donors wanted pro quo for their quid. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Hillary’s coughing fit returns.
Sunday Trump held rallies in Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Notice how neatly those stops align with Michael Moore’s contention that Trump will sweep the rust belt. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
The fact that the Clinton campaign is panicing over Michigan, deploying both Bill Clinton and Obama there, also lend credence to the theory. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
False story alert: That story about a “murder suicide” of an FBI agent who leaked Clinton scandal info from the non-existent “Denver Guardian” is a hoax.
Noted without comment: “Farrakhan compares Hillary Clinton to Hitler.”
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Bill Clinton, Border Controls, bribes, Carlos Slim, Clinton Foundation, CNN, Crime, Democrats, Doug Band, EmailGate, FBI, Foreign Policy, Frank Giustra, Haiti, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Health, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Iowa, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jean Marc Villain, Jennifer Palmieri, Jihad, John Podesta, Louis Farrakhan, Media Watch, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, polls, Qatar, Scott Adams, State Department, Virginia
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch | No Comments »
Friday, October 21st, 2016
It’s getting to the point that not only can I not keep up with the torrent of email leaks documenting Hillary Clinton corruption, I can’t even keep with the people keeping up with the leaks!
“State Department tried to bribe FBI to unclassify Clinton emails“:
A top State Department official offered a “quid pro quo” to an FBI investigator to declassify an e-mail from Hillary Clinton’s private server in exchange for allowing the bureau to operate in countries where it was banned, stunning new documents revealed Monday.
The FBI documents show that Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy pitched the deal to the unnamed agent, allegedly as part of an effort to back up Clinton’s claim that she did not send or receive classified documents on the server in her Westchester home.
“[Redacted] indicated he had been contacted by [Kennedy], Undersecretary of State, who had asked his assistance in altering the e-mail’s classification in exchange for a ‘quid pro quo,’ ” according to the documents, which summarized interviews the feds conducted in the summer of 2015 while investigating Clinton’s e-mail practices.
“[Redacted] advised that in exchange for marking the e-mail unclassified, STATE would reciprocate by allowing the FBI to place more Agents in countries where they are presently forbidden,” the document added.
One State Department staffer described feeling “immense pressure” to complete the review quickly and to not label anything as classified.
FBI agents say that director James Comey hindered the investigation:
“This is a textbook case where a grand jury should have convened but was not. That is appalling,” an FBI special agent who has worked public corruption and criminal cases said of the decision. “We talk about it in the office and don’t know how Comey can keep going.”
The agent was also surprised that the bureau did not bother to search Clinton’s house during the investigation.
“We didn’t search their house. We always search the house. The search should not just have been for private electronics, which contained classified material, but even for printouts of such material,” he said.
“There should have been a complete search of their residence,” the agent pointed out. “That the FBI did not seize devices is unbelievable. The FBI even seizes devices that have been set on fire.”
And the FBI summary report shows that Hilalry indeed broke the law. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Independent charity auditor found that the Clinton Foundation was a favor machine:
But most serious disclosure in the review was that donors expected a “quid pro quo” in return for their contributions. “Some interviewees reported conflicts of those raising funds or donors, some of whom may have an expectation of quid pro quo benefits in return for gifts.”
“This was bright line illegal,” Wall Street analyst and philanthropy expert Charles Ortel told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “This is a rogue charity that was out of control for years. And the trustees elected to not correct them. We’re not talking about people with no knowledge of the laws. These are people who can’t claim ignorance.”
“Hillary Charged Morrocan Government $12 Million for a Private Meeting.” Obviously they were desperate for some yoga tips…
More on that meeting:
The email from Huma Abedin, Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff at the State Department, was addressed to Podesta and campaign manager Robby Mook. Hillary Clinton was a director of the foundation at the time.
Singapore and Hong Kong officials reportedly were also vying to convene the CGI meeting in their countries, but the North African nation ultimately hosted it in a five-star hotel in Marrakesh, Morocco, in 2015. Abedin told Podesta and Mook that Morocco was not CGI’s “first choice.”
The actual meeting was paid for by OCP, the Moroccan-government-owned mining company that has been accused of serious human rights violations. Clinton vigorously supported the Moroccan King when she was Secretary of State and the U.S.-financed Export-Import Bank gave OCP a $92 million loan guarantee during her tenure as Secretary of State.
The mining company also contributed between $5 million to $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to the charity’s web site.
(Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
And of course there’s nothing suspicious at all about State Department officials discussing a $1 million donation to the Clinton Foundation from Qatar. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Only 5.7% of Clinton Foundation donations actually go to charity. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Clinton Foundation staffers talk about conflicts of interest within the Clinton Foundation.
The Clinton Foundation’s efforts in Columbia were a big success…at least for the bank account of Bill Clinton financial partner Frank Giustra. For regular Columbians? Not so much.
Woman on Hillary’s payroll brags about starting riots, hassling Trump supporters.
More on the same subject. DNC operative Aaron Minter: “So the Chicago protest when they shut all that, that was us.”
The dirty tricks are so blatant that even The New York Times was forced to notice. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Is this the fifth link I’ve provided to Hillary’s secret Goldman Sachs speeches, or the sixth? To tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost count… (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Clinton is not the tech privacy candidate.
Eight Hillary lies debunked. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
AP conspires with Obama Administration, Clinton functionaries to hide Iran deal from public.
Her crimes, his words.
Hillary Clinton’s non-answers to the Judicial Watch lawsuit. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Bill Clinton accused of yet another sexual assault by yet another woman.
“Believe the victims — unless they’re Bill’s.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Meanwhile, at the other end of the field, Trump accuser has the same phone number as the Clinton Foundation.
Even Democrats freaked out about Hillary’s agressive gun control stance. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Hillary Clinton’s security detail laughed after she broke her elbow because she treated them like shit.
Latest Wikileaks dump exposes George Soros’ contact information.
“Most Say Media, Not Russians, Tilting the Election.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Electing Hillary Clinton will be an endorsement of permanent political corruption and consent for the use of government as an instrument to extinguish dissent.”
“WikiLeaks poisons Hillary’s relationship with left.” That headline is sort of like “Audit poisons Bernie Madoff’s relations with investors.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Tags:2016 Presidential Race, Aaron Minter, Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, Columbia, Crime, Democrats, Elections, EmailGate, Frank Giustra, fraud, George Soros, gun control, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Judicial Watch, Morocco, Patrick Kennedy, Qatar, Wikileaks
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Guns, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 26th, 2016
I can certainly understand the Clinton clan’s self-centered greed and avarice. What I struggle to understand is why they keep repeatedly hiring employees with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Take, for example, former Clinton Foundation employee Gehad El-Haddad, who was just sentenced to life in prison in Egypt for his work as the mouthpiece for Mohamed Morsi’s short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government.
Then there are the well documented familial links between perpetual #1 Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin and the Muslim Brotherhood:
Sheikh Qaradawi is a promoter of jihadist terror. His fatwas endorse terrorist attacks against American personnel in Iraq as well as suicide bombing — by both men and women — against Israel. He is a leading supporter of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch. He also runs an umbrella organization called the Union for Good (sometimes referred to as the “Union of Good”), which is formally designated a terrorist organization under American law. The Union for Good was behind the “Peace Flotilla” that attempted to break our ally Israel’s blockade of the terrorist organization Hamas (the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch) in 2010.
That’s rather interesting — at least to me, though apparently not to Speaker Boehner — because Huma Abedin’s mother, Saleha, who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s female division (the “Muslim Sisterhood”), is a major figure in not one but two Union for Good components. The first is the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR). It is banned in Israel for supporting Hamas under the auspices of the Union for Good. Then there’s the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC) — an organization that Dr. Saleha Abedin has long headed. Dr. Abedin’s IICWC describes itself as part of the IICDR. And wouldn’t you know it, the IICWC charter was written by none other than . . . Sheikh Qaradawi, in conjunction with several self-proclaimed members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The recently declassified 28 pages of the 9/11 report has more to say about it. “The ‘Abedin family business’ is an academic group called the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs that is based in the London offices of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and its parent organization, the Muslim World League.”
About the World Arab Muslim Youth Association:
According to the FBI. Abdullah Bin Ladin [Osama bin Laden’s half-brother] has a number of connections to terrorist organizations. He is the President and Director of the World Arab Muslim Youth Association (WAMY) and the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Science in America. Both organizations are local branches of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
According to the FBI, there is reason to believe that WAMY is “closely associated with the funding and financing of international terrorist activities and in the past has provided logistical support to individuals wishing to to fight in the Afghan War.” In 1998, the CIA published a paper characterizing WAMY as a NGO that provides funding. logistical support and training with possible connections to the Arab Afghans network, Hamas, Algerian extremists and Philippine militants.
Who else calls attention to the World Arab Muslim Youth Association’s ties to terrorism? Would you believe Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?
Saudi Arabia has enacted important reforms to criminalize terrorist financing and restrict the overseas flow of funds from Saudi-based charities. However, these restrictions fail to include multilateral organizations such as the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), Muslim World League (MWL) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY.) Intelligence suggests that these groups continue to send money overseas and, at times, fund extremism overseas.
Despite all this, Saudi pressure has helped keep the International Islamic Relief Organization and World Arab Muslim Youth Association off the official list of groups with terrorist ties.
And as long as we’re discussing Hillary’s ties to terrorism, we should probably mention “numerous ties between Hillary Clinton and members of the shadowy network surrounding Fethullah Gulen, the controversial Muslim cleric who has been called ‘the Turkish Khomeini,’ and whom the Erdogan regime is accusing of instigating the coup that nearly toppled it.” (Just because I don’t think Gulen had any significant role in the coup doesn’t mean he’s not an Islamist scumbag.)
According to the Caller, the Gulen camp has been one of Hillary’s numerous sources of cash, in exchange for which she gave access to the President: “a Gulen follower named Gokhan Ozkok asked Clinton deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin for help in connecting one of his allies to President Obama….Ozkok served as national finance co-chair of the pro-Clinton Ready PAC. He gave $10,000 to the committee in 2014 and $2,700 to Clinton’s campaign last year. He is also listed on the Turkish Cultural Center’s website as a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, one of the non-profit arms of the Clinton Foundation. He’s given between $25,000 and $50,000 to the Clinton charity.”
Ah, money for access. Now the Clinton ties to the Muslim Brotherhood are starting to make more sense. Maybe they helped the Clinton Foundation bring in money from the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Sheikh Mohammed H. Al-Amoudi, Nasser Al-Rashid, etc. Indeed, counting speaking fees and money for “walking away” from an investment partnership with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum of Dubai, the Clintons have collectively pocketed $100 million from Persian Gulf rulers.
There’s are other angles to the story I haven’t had time to track down yet. Like why did Hillary Clinton’s new VP pick Tim Kaine appoint the President of the Muslim Brotherhood-tied Muslim American Society, Esam Omeish, to Virginia’s state’s Immigration Commission?
But I’ll have to leave those for another time.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Bill Clinton, Clinton Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative, Dubai, Elections, Esam Omeish, Fethullah Gulen, Gehad El-Haddad, Gokhan Ozkok, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Huma Abedin, International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief, Jihad, Kuwait, Mohammed Al-Amoudi, Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Mohammed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood, Nasser Al-Rashid, Qatar, Saleha Abedin, Saudi Arabia, Tim Kaine, Virginia, World Arab Muslim Youth Association, Yussuf al-Qaradawi
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 1st, 2015
From the blind-squirrel-finds-an-acorn department, here’s another rare interesting and useful piece from Vox that actually lists 181 major donors to the Clinton Foundation that also had business with Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
Tidbits:
Microsoft/The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was the number one donor, giving at least $26,000,000, and possibly a great deal more, as no upper limit was reported.
The State of Qatar (and “related entities”) was the fourth largest donor, giving between $1,375,000 and $5,800,000. Rich Qatar individuals are also among the biggest backers of the Islamic State.
Goldman Sachs was the fifth largest donor, giving between $1,250,000 and $5,500,000. So much for all that “Occupy Wall Street” rhetoric from Democrats…
ExxonMobil was the ninth largest donor, and gave between $1,001,000 and $5,005,000. By liberal standards, shouldn’t this disqualify Hillary from talking about global warming ever again?
The “Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa,” of which I was heretofore unaware, was tied for giving the tenth largest amount, between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000. They’re a Gates Foundation-backed entity that appears (from cursory research) to be pushing genetically modified crops (including those from Monsanto and Cargill) as a solution to Africa’s hunger problems. The question is why the money flows from Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa to the Clintons and not the other way around. Except, of course, for the fact that the money always seems to flow to the Clintons, and not the other way around…
Monsanto themselves gave between $501,250 and $1,006,000.
The American Cancer Society gave between $100,000 and $250,000. Why is the Cancer Society giving money to the Clinton Foundation? Has anyone asked?
Semiconductor equipment giant Applied Materials (for which I worked for four years more than a decade ago) gave between $100,000 and $250,000. Doing business globally, there are many reasons they could have sought favorable rulings from the State Department. However, some semiconductor equipment (specifically ion implanters, and possibly others) can be used (with modification) to enrich uranium.
This just scratches the surface on a Clinton Foundation scandal where new revelations seem to be dropping every day. But it’s a solid jumping-off point for additional research.
Also, it offers a opportunity to troll liberals: “Do you think that Ted Cruz receiving money from Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil and Monsanto makes him a tool of big business?” Then after they answer…
Tags:2016 Presidential Race, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, American Cancer Society, Applied Materials, Bill Gates, Cargill, Clinton Foundation, Democrats, Elections, ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Microsoft, Monsanto, Qatar, Vox.com
Posted in Democrats, Elections | No Comments »